


Own Thoughts

by ScottieIsImpatient



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e03 The Chute, Hurt/Comfort, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28703832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScottieIsImpatient/pseuds/ScottieIsImpatient
Summary: Harry worries he's responsible for his own thoughts.
Relationships: Harry Kim & Tom Paris
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	Own Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> I've been getting into Voyager a lot recently. I started watching it sometime last year and, like with Enterprise, got drawn in on the first episode. That's how I knew it was gonna be good.
> 
> Unfortunately I couldn't drag myself out of my Enterprise hyperfixation and thus was kinda slow in my Voyager watching. I still am, honestly, but I'm getting there. I swear! I'm almost finished season four now!
> 
> Harry is by far my favourite Voyager character, followed closely by Tuvok and then by Tom (which is ironic considering I haTED Tom at first, but he grew on me). I wanted to write a fic for this fandom. And what better kind of fic to write than ANGST?! :D *cue that audio of the children cheering*
> 
> Yeah... y'all knew it was coming.
> 
> I apologize for any and all character/universe discrepancies because I have no doubt there will be quite a few. I'm still used to Enterprise and its technological limits (sometimes I forget warp 9 is a thing). I did my best so please go easy on the criticism, yeah? It can take some time to really get the feel of a character.
> 
> I also apologize to the Voyager fandom for the angst storm that is (possibly) headed your way.
> 
> This is set between when Harry and Tom get rescued and the final scene because I don't care how advanced medicine is in the 2370s, there's no WAY someone is recovering from a stab wound, possible infection, and malnutrition in just a few hours.

Harry felt filthy, physically and emotionally – the dirt and grime which had accumulated on his skin for the past several days seemed unwilling to dissipate no matter how many times he washed at himself, scrubbing until his skin turned red and even began to bleed in some places. He knew this wasn’t all to do with his physical state, of course. The Doctor had made this very clear.

Residual irritation still lingered. Harry tossed and turned and rolled around on the bio-bed, unable to fall asleep no matter how exhausted he felt. The blanket was too scratchy and the mattress to hard. Sickbay really needs more comfortable beds, he thought absently.

A low moan came from his neighbouring bed. Harry flinched slightly, his mind whirring as every bone in his body told him to get up and run to his friend, protect him from any potential attacks from the other inmates, until he eventually calmed down enough to tell himself he was no longer in that god forsaken prison with the clamp scrambling his brain and his friend bleeding out.

However, it was already too late. The bio-bed had detected his increased respiration and the Doctor had started to make his way over from the office.

“Ensign Kim, are you alright?” the hologram asked.

Harry mumbled into his pillow as a reply. A few moments passed in silence, save for Tom’s slightly raspy breathing, until he heard the familiar hum of a scanner passing over his body. Seized by a bout of irritation, Harry flung himself upright and snapped, “is there something you need?”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “I detected an increase in your heart rate,” he stated, “consistent with an oncoming anxiety attack. Are you sure you don’t need anything to fall asleep?”

Drugs. That was the last thing he needed. “No, I’m fine,” Harry sighed. Then he rubbed a hand against his forehead. “I’m sorry, Doctor. I think I’m still feeling the effects of the clamp.”

“Not to worry,” the Doctor reassured him cheerfully. He shut his scanner off with a faint _click_ and deposited it on a nearby desk. “You should expect some anger and discomfort in the next few hours. Fortunately, I suspect it will last no longer than that.”

A few more hours. Sure, he could survive that.

The Doctor hesitated before he spoke again: “Mr. Kim. You have just gone through a very traumatic experience. You are physically and mentally exhausted. I highly recommend lying down so that I may administer a sed-”

“Don’t sedate me,” Harry interrupted, a faint but noticeable pleading note in his voice. “Please. I-I’ll get to sleep on my own.”

“I’m sure you will. Somewhere around 0600 hours, that is.”

 _Who programmed the sarcasm?_ Harry thought.

“You cannot expect an instant rebound,” the Doctor continued. He had lowered his voice, perhaps out of sympathy or perhaps because Tom had started to stir from the raised voices. “There is no medicine I can give you for getting over trauma. Sleep is the best thing I can recommend.”

“I don’t need a lecture, doc.” Harry’s knees curled against his body instinctively, his arms wrapping around them until he was but a shivering ball. “I know I need sleep but… I just can’t. You know?” His gaze moved towards his friend’s sleeping form. He looked significantly better than he had in that prison – pale, unconscious, on the brink of death.

And Harry had almost contributed to that.

“Contributed how?” the Doctor asked.

Harry startled, unaware that he’d said the last thing out loud. “I, uh…”

“You can talk to me, Mr. Kim. Doctor-patient confidentiality.”

It wasn’t the confidentiality he was worried about, though. Harry had always prided himself on being a put-together, organized individual. He’d flown from cadet to Ensign with ease. Oh, he’d been so excited to be posted on Voyager, even if the mission was only a few weeks long.

And then everything happened, and weeks stretched into months, and months into years. Suddenly Harry was nervous all the time, though he tried not to show it. He was but a young Ensign, barely into his twenties, and he found himself forced to act older than he was. It wasn’t that anyone but himself imposed this onto him – but it still felt an obligatory part of keeping his role onboard _Voyager._ Keeping his status, his self-respect.

The prison, the clamp – it had forced all that away. It brought his aggression to his surface and heightened his anxiety. He couldn’t keep himself in control anymore. He felt as though he’d lost something, his humanity, maybe, while down there in that filthy prison full of hostile aliens.

“I almost killed him,” Harry finally whispered. “Tom. He- when we were planning our escape, uh, deactivating the shield. Our pipe – the tool we going to do it with. Our only chance.” _He destroyed it,_ a voice in the back of his mind sneered. “The clamp got to him. He tore it apart.”

“And you attacked him because of it?” the Doctor assumed coolly.

Harry nodded weakly. “I, uh…”

_Fabric gripped in his hands. Metallic clangs every time head impacted wall._

“ _Please! Harry, no!”_

_Screaming. Cool metal closing around his fingers._

“I took- I wrestled the pipe from him.”

_Anger coursing through his veins. Red hot spikes of pain pounding against his skull._

_“Go ahead. Finish him.”_

Too vivid. Everything was too vivid. The hysteric laughter of the other prisoners, Tom’s panicked expression. Himself, raising the pipe in anger, ready to bring it down on his best friend’s head.

“I almost killed him,” Harry whispered, barely audible. “I could have. I could have killed him – my best friend.”

Movement caught the corner of his eye. Kes approached the bio-bed slowly, a hypospray in her hand. The intention sunk in a second later and Harry kicked off the blankets and lurched backwards until he was pressed against the wall. Fear, anxiety, and fury all combined to make an intense emotion he couldn’t identify.

“Stay back,” he warned, voice shaking. “I could kill you too.”

Kes looked at the Doctor. The Doctor still looked at Harry. There was pity in their eyes.

Harry’s fists tightened against the front of his shirt, which suddenly felt all too suffocating. The air was thin. He couldn’t breathe. “I could have killed him,” he repeated weakly.

“Mr. Kim, the effects you felt – they were not your own. They were the result of an implant, designed to overstimulate the part of your brain responsible for aggression.”

_“Think of what a relief it will be to not have that responsibility.”_

And he had. He’d seriously considered it, debated what would follow. He’d felt the weight of the shank in his hand, stared at it as his mind stained it with blood, Tom’s blood. The blade slipping easily into flesh and gasps getting softer, softer, until they were no more.

“But they were still _my_ thoughts!” Harry growled. He stared down at his shaking hands. Invisible blood stained them. “I thought about it. I thought, _I could accomplish so much without him weighing me down._ Me! I thought that!” Desperately, he flung his gaze back up. “I gave in to it. I almost killed him, Doctor! What if I had? What if I’d killed my best friend?”

His vision was too blurry to see the Doctor’s face. A cascade of tears began to roll down his cheeks and he curled himself up further, unable to control himself anymore. He buried his face into his arms, shoulders jerking and heaving in hitched sobs. He felt both drained yet hyperactive at the same time.

“He still seems rather unstable,” he heard the Doctor say. “He refused to be sedated but by this severe reaction…”

“I’ll fetch the sedative,” said Kes gently.

“No,” Harry muttered. “No, I don’t want it.” But he felt too tired to raise his voice beyond a whisper. Besides, he thought as cool metal touched the side of his neck, it’s highly unlikely that they’d listen anyway.

* * *

The world seemed fuzzy and unfocused when he awoke. Harry groaned; blinked once, then twice. He must have left the lights on last night. Harry was just beginning to wonder what he possibly could have been doing that made him so exhausted as to forget about the lights when his ears picked up soft voices coming from his right. He couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Harry’s eyes finally adjusted, and he realized he wasn’t in his quarters, but in sickbay. And so, came the memories. Disjointed and confusing, to be sure, but enough to cause significant alarm. Harry flung himself upright and immediately regretted it when the world started spinning. The voices stopped talking.

A couple of seconds passed before one spoke up. “You’re finally awake, Mr. Kim! Feeling any better?”

“Mm,” Harry mumbled.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Footsteps crossed the room and Harry heard the hum of a medical scanner. “I have fortunately managed to reverse most of the effects of this clamp so you shouldn’t be feeling as much irritation as you were last night. There is still a bit to go, however. Are you hungry? I believe it is breakfast time.”

Once he was sure the nausea was gone, Harry nodded and opened his eyes fully. As expected, the Doctor was hovering over him with a smile on his face and a scanner in hand, but what surprised Harry the most was the sight of Tom sitting upright on the adjacent bio-bed, a tray of food in front of him. Catching Harry’s eye, he grinned.

“I wanted the seven-course but the doc said that would be to much.”

“Need I remind you, Mr. Paris-” the hologram trotted over to Tom’s side “-that you suffered a severe stab wound to the lower abdomen by a, to quote you, absolutely filthy knife. Soft foods will be much more tolerable for your body for the next day or two.”

Tom rolled his eyes.

Harry stared at his friend, marveled by how much better he seemed. His face was slightly paler and small beads of sweat dotted his forehead, but he no longer looked as if he were knocking on death’s door. 

“What’s the matter, Harry?” Tom inquired good naturedly. “Did I get something on my face?”

“Hm?”

“You’re staring.”

“Oh.” Harry quickly averted his eyes. “Um, sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tom reassured him. Harry did not miss the note of suspicion in his tone.

 _Oh, come off it,_ said his mind. _He’s your friend. He obviously doesn’t blame you for what happened, so would you quit playing victim already?_

His internal speech did little to make him feel better, so he decided on grabbing the figurative bull by the horns. “Uh, Tom.”

“Mhm?” answered the pilot, his mouth full of oatmeal.

Harry didn’t get any farther, however. The words stuck in his mouth, if they were ever there at all, and he found himself locked in a rather awkward staring match with his best friend.

“I hate to break this up,” the Doctor said, clearing his throat, “but if you would mind shuffling backwards a bit, Mr. Kim, Kes will be able to serve you a well-deserved meal.”

The uncomfortable moment broken, Harry obliged the Doctor’s request and allowed for Kes to place his breakfast on the tray. “Be sure to take it slow,” she advised.

He stared down at his breakfast, suddenly feeling rather sick. His stomach grumbled, begged for substance, but his brain had shut down and Harry found himself unable to comply.

“Harry,” Tom persuaded. “Don’t tell me you’ve lost your taste for real food. We promised each other a full dinner tonight, didn’t we? Sure beats those squares of… whatever the hell they tossed down to us!”

Harry gave a small smile. If Tom noticed the strain behind it, he didn’t mention it.


End file.
